Hope Restored
by GrizzBe
Summary: A fic that starts about 10 minutes before the end of Rogue One. Spoilers follow!
1. Chapter 1

_Before you read this fic, know that there are spoilers for the end of Rogue One starting at the_ _ **very first line.**_ _I don't want to spoil it for anyone that hasn't seen it yet so please take note and read no further if you haven't seen the movie yet! Speaking of which, you should totally go see the movie ASAP! It's amazing! I'll have more notes at the bottom!_

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Jyn and Cassian leaned on each other as they moved off the communications platform toward the elevator. Her leg ached from the catwalk collapsing but she had done it, _they_ had done it. The rebel fleet above them had received the plans, her friends' sacrifices weren't made in vain. Cassian, ever the soldier, limped on, only a grimace and a blaster wound to indicate what hell his body had just gone through.

The two could hear the chaos that was still happening all around them as the Rebel fighters in the air continued to fight, despite the overwhelming TIE force that had appeared out of the base's hangars and the firefight below still carried out in pockets as the AT-ACTs worked to methodically stomp out the rest of the Rebel insurgency on the island. None of it mattered, though, as her father's Space Station, the weapon that he had worked so hard to ensure had a fatal flaw for the Rebellion to be able to exploit, loomed on the horizon. She wasn't even sure how long ago it had come out of hyperspace but its presence meant only one thing, that the Empire was willing to sacrifice one of its most important facilities to deprive the Alliance of any valuable intel they might have found.

Even as the doors opened, she knew that everyone near the facility was living on borrowed time. Jyn made sure Cassian wouldn't collapse and then turned to the control panel, punching the button to go to the train terminal that would take them back to the pad and their comrades, whichever of them still survived, at least. Before she could turn around, Cassian's hand had pressed the button to take them to the landing pad halfway down the tower.

"No one's answering our calls, Jyn. We might as well try our chances of getting out of here," said Cassian, giving Jyn a sympathetic look through his pain.

"We don't know that, someone might have made it, they might've lost their-" started Jyn.

"They're gone. Even if they weren't, they're surrounded out there," said Cassian. "They all knew that this was likely a one-way trip. They came anyway. The best we can do is try and get away and make sure people know what they did out there."

Jyn set her jaw but nodded, she knew Cassian was right but it didn't make it any easier to stomach. She hadn't known them for long, but they had managed to be the closest thing she had had to a family since her early days with Saw. As much as she had worked to make sure she was as independent as possible after being abandoned by the big, lumbering Rebel, she enjoyed having people to be able to fall back on and to help pick her up when she stumbled. Chirrut, Baze, and Bodhi would live on in the stories of legend passed between Rebels, their sacrifices and bravery helping those that found themselves pushing back against the weight of the Empire.

Jyn looked at Cassian, his breathing becoming more labored with each passing moment. If she couldn't get him help soon, he would join the others, existing only as a story of valor. She was going to try her hardest to make sure that didn't happen.

As the platform came to a stop and the doors opened, Cassian all but fell on Jyn, his injuries taking more and more of a toll on his body. She struggled to take on his weight and aim her blaster down the hall as the two limped off toward the landing pad. There weren't any Imperial forces in the halls, all available manpower seemed to have been directed at the Rebel forces on the beach, but she still found herself wishing that they hadn't left their disguises in the records vault.

It wasn't until they had almost made it to the pad itself that they saw the first signs of Imperial presence on the floor, as several officers and staff ran around, too harried to even make note of the injured Rebels stumbling towards the few shuttles that hadn't already taken off. They appeared to only be reacting to the fighting that was happening on the beach and not to the imminent threat that their own weapon orbiting the planet posed against them.

As if reacting to her thoughts, the tower rocked, shuttering against the power of the weapon that had just been fired. Jyn blinked as the debris of the communications dish showered down on everyone. Almost instantly afterwards, not far off the coast, a large plume of fire and water erupted where the Death Star's laser had landed. If Jedah was anything to go off of, they didn't have long before they were doomed, maybe minutes if they were lucky.

Suddenly understanding the gravity of their current situation, the Imperial personnel near the pad erupted into action, orders were shouted around and men moved with renewed vigor. There were only a handful of Lambda-class shuttles on the platform.

Jyn started moving them towards the shuttle at the farther end of the platform, making sure the two of them stayed in the shadows behind cargo crates, away from the attention of the panicking soldiers. Cassian grunted, "Good choice."

"I just figured I'd take our chances racing against that," Jyn said, nodding towards the growing tower of death building off the coast, "than against them," she said, nodding towards the growing number of soldiers that were already moving equipment towards the shuttles nearest to the tower. The Death Star blast would certainly kill them, but only if they survived long enough to get hit by its explosion.

"We're lucky," said Cassian. "I think even you could fly one of these T-4s." He grunted again against the pain that was racking his body. The charred blaster wound was beginning to open up from all the exertion that the Captain was placing on it, his shirt beginning to stain with blood. "Hell, you're probably going to have to."

"Just keep moving, soldier," said Jyn, gritting her teeth and leading the two out from behind the crates as they pulled up even with their targeted shuttle. The ramp was down already, and the two were almost there before they heard the mechanical sounds of stormtroopers sounding the alarm to the two rebels at the far end of the platform. Jyn rolled her eyes as they hit the ramp, making sure Cassian had a grip before pulling out her blaster. "Get the shuttle fired up," she said, taking aim at the nearest trooper and firing, dropping him. "I'll hold them off."

"Just stay alive till then, Jyn," said Cassian, as he limped his way towards the cockpit to fire up the shuttle.

Jyn took cover behind some small crates as a salvo of blaster fire from the encroaching stormtroopers went over her head. She took quick peeks from behind cover, plotting where the three troopers were before checking her blaster charge. It read practically full, she hadn't been shooting much and the shots she had taken she had made count. With that, Jyn took a quick breath before ducking out of cover and firing off two shots in quick succession.

She rolled back behind the crates before she had a chance to see if her shots had landed but the two distinct metallic cries told her all that she needed to know. She took a chance and peeked over her cover to get a handle on where the third stormtrooper was, only to find that he had taken cover of his own. She could hear him call in reinforcements through the din of controlled chaos coming from the Imperial soldiers that continued to load cargo into the other shuttles.

The shuttle's engines next to her slowly began to turn. "Too slow," Jyn breathed as she surveyed the pad, keeping an eye on the lone stormtrooper. "What's the hold up, Cassian? We don't exactly have a lot of time, here!"

"I'm working on it!" shouted Cassian down from the shuttle cockpit. "There's something wrong with the motivator! We'll be ready to go any moment now, hold on!"

Jyn couldn't help but feel that was easier said than done as she looked at the cloud of destruction grow bigger by the second. She heard the rumble of footsteps from the backup the last stormtrooper had called for and felt the withering blaster fire begin to strike her crate. Pretty soon, they would fan out and flank her, leaving it to Cassian to get away on his own. Jyn blindly fired her blaster over the crate, but without a chance to aim, the shots were practically useless and the stormtroopers continued to take aim at her.

As she waited for the troopers to finish encircling her, Jyn took notice of a smaller box next to her and unlatched it, surveying its contents. "I'll be damned," she whispered as she counted the concussion grenades. Eight. That would be more than enough to allow her to escape if Cassian could ever get the Shuttle ready.

As if on cue, the T-4a roared to life, lifting off the ground by a few inches and looking ready to get off the doomed planet. Jyn holstered her blaster and grabbed several of the concussion grenades, arming them and tossing them in the direction of the blaster fire before pocketing the last two. They wouldn't kill the troopers, but with the base's destruction mere moments away, the effect it would have on them was effectively a death sentence. Jyn found it difficult to sympathise with her would-be killers.

As the pounding of the concussive explosions went off in rapid succession, Jyn made a run for the open ramp, only being met with inaccurate blaster fire to try and dissuade her. She smashed the button to retract the ramp and staggered toward the cockpit, suddenly aware of every pain that she had inflicted on her body over the past hour.

Her legs nearly buckled underneath her as the ship accelerated away from the towering inferno at a speed she was fairly certain was beyond standard operating limits for this particular vessel. The frame began to shake as she took her seat next to Cassian, who was busy punching buttons and setting a course to safety.

Jyn could almost feel the heat from the Death Star's explosion as she looked out the cockpit's windows at the wave of destruction that was following them. The shaking became violent and, for a moment, she wasn't sure that they were going to make it. Had they just gone through all of that to burn down halfway to the stratosphere when they could have just gone back to the beach? She really liked the beach…

Just as it felt like the shuttle would shake itself into a thousand parts around them, they burst through the atmosphere and found themselves in the eerie stillness of space. The two rebels let out nervous shouts of exclamation that they had been unaware they had been holding in as they had made their breathless escape. Jyn threw her arms around Cassian, who returned the hug through a wince. His wounds had only gotten worse since she had sent him up the ramp on the landing pad.

"Cassian, you need to lay down," said Jyn. "Give me a chance to take a look at that wound." She had learned basic battlefield medicine when she was with Saw Gerrera's unit, it might not be enough to help Cassian but it was worth a shot.

Cassian began to respond when the shuttle's radio started, "Shuttle Atherion, we have you on our radar. Good to see someone make it off the planet!" The two looked out the cockpit glass to see the remnants of the Imperial fleet that had been stationed at Scarif performing mop-up operations. No less than three Imperial-class Star Destroyers and countless TIE fighter squadrons dotted the space immediately surrounding their small, lightly armed and armored shuttle.

Captain Andor fumbled at the radio switch before Jyn clicked over, "Yes, we're quite lucky! Did anyone else make it?"

"One other shuttle is currently making its way through the debris field. We'll have contact with them shortly," came the Imperial operator over the radio. Jyn gave Cassian a pointed look and the spy began to furiously work on plotting a hyperdrive course out of the system. "Follow your present course, Shuttle Atherion, and rendezvous with the Hydra."

"Roger that, setting course to rendezvous with the Hydra," Jyn confirmed with the radio operator, clicking off of the channel before turning to Cassian. "We have until that other shuttle clears the debris field before they know we're not who we say we are. What's taking so long?"

"I've got to plot a course to a system with no ties to the Rebellion," replied Cassian, working furiously at the controls.

"What are you talking about? Just follow the fleet back to Yavin," exclaimed Jyn, growing increasingly uneasy as she looked out at the numerous TIE fighters patrolling the debris from the battle that had raged here mere moments before.

"The fleet didn't _go_ back to Yavin," said Cassian, a touch of curtness working its way into his voice. "The capital ships would've jumped to several different, completely random points to split any potential Imperial pursuers and make sure they weren't followed back. Keeping the location of the Yavin 4 base a secret is the second highest priority for any rebels that were at this fight. Only the Death Star plans are more important."

"Shuttle Atherion, you're drifting. Return to your former course to safely rendezvous with the Hydra," squawked the Imperial officer over the radio.

"Uh, we're having some trouble on our end," said Jyn, visibly wincing as she attempted to improvise her way through the conversation. "The blast must've scrambled something in our engines. We're taking a look at it now. Will return to our former course when we get things sorted."

Several moments passed without a reply, Jyn and Cassian exchanged nervous looks. Perhaps the Imperials were discussing how to wrangle in their wayward shuttle or perhaps the other shuttle had finally radioed in and informed its superiors that they weren't who they were pretending to be. "Power down your engines, Shuttle Atherion, a TIE escort will tow you back to the Hydra soon."

That answered her question well enough, "Cassian…"

"I know," said the Captain, furiously finishing his hyperspace plot. Several squadrons of TIEs appeared to peel off of their pattern and begin an approach at their hopelessly outgunned shuttle.

"Shuttle Atherion, power down your engines or we'll be forced to disable you," the voice came in again over the radio and Jyn had to fight the urge to unholster her blaster and shoot the radio off the control panel.

" _Cassian…"_ was all Jyn could manage, staring down the TIEs that were getting closer with each second. She began to get out of her seat to take up a position at the weapons station, for all the good that would do against the Imperial fighters. She was determined to not go down without a fight.

The opening salvo from the nearest TIEs caused the shuttle to shutter but didn't appear to do any damage. These were warning shots, meant to convince them to listen to the radio and power down their engines without a fight. It wouldn't be long before the shots would start to find their mark.

Before she could completely get out of her seat, Cassian grabbed at the hyperspace controls, "Hold on!" Jyn crashed back down as the familiar lines of hyperspace travel enveloped the cockpit. The two checked the control panel for any warning lights or distressing sounds and when everything looked to be in order the two spies jumped and threw their fists into the air in triumph, shouting in victory.

Jyn turned to Cassian and grabbed him, only to be met with a sharp wince from Andor before she recoiled and took in his injuries. He was even worse off than she had thought, his blaster wound bleeding freely at this point. A pool of blood had slowly formed around his seat. She hadn't even considered the blunt trauma that the earlier fall from the record tower had done to him. Jyn quickly moved to support him before he collapsed and helped him limp to a bench in the back.

She laid him down before heading off to look for medical supplies, quickly finding a basic trauma kit stowed away near the cockpit. She went to work applying the various gels and foams and bandages, doing her best to recall her short medical training with Saw. In the end, it would have to do until she could get him to better facilities. Jyn pulled out a needle from the kit, a moderate painkiller that would knock Cassian out cold. Being unconscious before the shock wore off and he felt everything was probably the best mercy she could give him.

"Alright Cassian, this'll pinch a bit, but you'll be out cold before you feel the worst of it," said Jyn as she quickly sterilized the spot on his arm where she was going to inject him. "For quite a while, too. I'm actually jealous, I'm exhausted."

Cassian, who had looked close to passing out on his own, grabbed Jyn's arm that was holding the needle, "I set our coordinates for an outer rim territory. The people there shouldn't be friends of the Empire, but that doesn't mean they're our friends either."

Jyn slowly pried Cassian's grip from her arm, "I'll be careful, Cassian. You have my word." She injected the painkiller into his arm and watched as the Spy closed his eyes and slipped off into oblivion. "You forget, I was with those kinds of people for a decade before you picked me up."

Jyn patted an unbandaged part of Cassian's shoulder before getting up and taking her spot in the cockpit. Her eyes slowly drifted from the zipping lines to the smear of blood by Cassian's seat. She got up and found some material to clean it off with, her thoughts going over everything that she had been through in such a short amount of time. She thought of all the people, friends, she had met and subsequently lost. Jyn's jaw and eyes set as she methodically scrubbed the floor. The Empire had taken too much from her and she was determined to not stop fighting them until she had extracted her price in their destruction.

The spot faded but refused to go away completely, forcing Jyn to toss the rag away in a bin before taking her seat again. She watched as hyperspace zoomed past the shuttle and, gradually, the exhaustion that wracked her body finally dragged her into a restless sleep.

* * *

 _I hope you liked it! I really enjoyed the movie and_ totally _understood why everyone died, but part of me really wanted to see Jyn survive. I really think they could've used her to continue to explore the grittier side of the universe that you don't see in the other movies. So, that's what this fic is about! Cassian's fate is deliberately left in limbo, I'm not sure if I want him to survive yet or not. Please let me know what all you think!_


	2. Chapter 2

_This chapter_ might _have taken longer than I had hoped and it might have gotten away from me a little bit there at the end. I think I've got it going in a good direction for the next chapter and beyond, though! Also, random thought (and thinnest graspable straw ever) of the day for those of us that are still bummed that Jyn (and Cass, I guess) didn't make it out of Rogue One alive, this is a universe where, canonically, Darth Maul survived getting chopped in half and falling down a bottomless pit and Boba Fett (canonically? I can't remember with all of the EU Legends business that happened) survived getting eaten alive by the Sarlacc, so Jyn could_ definitely _(probably not, but maybe) still be alive! Anyways, I hope y'all like this chapter! Thanks for all the feedback for the first chapter!_

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Jyn found herself back in her old room on Coruscant, peeking through her door at the scene in their living room. The man in white was speaking to papa, she couldn't see mother, she was probably in the kitchen fixing drinks for the three of them. Jyn didn't want to go out, the man in white appeared to be saying something important, but she couldn't help it. She slipped past her door and tiptoed closer to papa.

Once again, papa spotted her before she could hear anything and, once again, he swooped her into her arms and said those sweet words that he had said a thousand times to her. He walked her back to her room, the shadow from her doorframe covering his face for only a second. When he passed back into the light, though, it wasn't papa carrying her and she wasn't a little girl. Cass was carrying her now, he looked distressed and his breath was coming in a ragged cadence. Jyn could hear explosions and blaster fire in the background, there could have also been screams but she couldn't tell.

The U-wing they had been using came into view and Cassian set her down. She didn't remember getting wounded but she couldn't stand up. The others walked up to her then, Baze and Chirrut and Bodhi. She could hear Kaytoo in the background, "Tell her she needs to get up already, we haven't much time."

"Would you calm down Kaytoo, she needs some time!" Cass shouted back. The explosions that continued to grow closer told her that Kaytoo was probably right. "We need to go soon, though, Jyn. You need to get up."

Bodhi and Chirrut offered to help her up and she accepted their outstretched hands. Baze moved to stand guard and Cass ran over to the U-wing to help Kaytoo finish his preparations. The thuds from the explosions grew closer, louder, rattled her bones. Jyn instinctively shouted out at Cass, he turned around just in time for her to see his face when the starfighter behind him blossomed into flame, throwing her against a tree trunk meters behind her.

* * *

Jyn startled from her seat, the control panel in front of her blacked out except for a single blinking red light. She had no idea how long she had been out but they had slipped out of hyperspace at some point. The blackness of space spread in front of her, pricked with the bright white lights of stars untold millions of lightyears away from them.

The ship shuddered around her as something took hold of the shuttle. Jyn shot from her seat, the adrenaline pumping out any of the sleep that had been lingering in her system. Could the Empire have found them already? Cass had told her that he had set coordinates for a backwater system not affiliated to either the Rebellion or the Empire but that didn't mean that they hadn't run into an Imperial patrol. She had had worse luck before.

She raced for the weapons locker and grabbed a blaster rifle. If these were Imperials, the E-11 wouldn't be of much use but she found herself determined to take a few of them with her. Jyn threw the rifle around her shoulder and rushed over to Cassian, still knocked out where she had left him. With some effort, she dragged the unconscious Rebel intelligence officer behind a crate. It wouldn't offer him a lot of protection, but it was all that she could manage. The shuttle settled down onto whatever had grabbed it and Jyn took position behind some cargo near the ramp. She folded the stock back and waited, sighting the ramp.

Within seconds of the shuttle coming to halt a strong grinding sound erupted in front of Jyn. Her eyes darted to the ramp's controls, she hadn't remembered to jam them. Not the Empire, then. Whoever it was didn't have the means to open the ramp normally. Maybe pirates. Possibly smugglers or salvagers. She could deal with smugglers and salvagers, pirates were a bit trickier. They were making quick progress on the ramp, this lot wasn't worried about being gentle.

The ramp wrenched open in short order and she could hear a mixture of different voices speaking basic and a few more alien languages. She figured there were at least four different people at the bottom of the ramp, maybe as many as six. She couldn't let them all come up the ramp at once, she was a good shot but those odds weren't great and the chances of Cass getting hit in the crossfire were too great. She fired a shot over the entrance to the ship.

The voices at the bottom of the ramp stopped and then there was a torrent of murmurs. What if they had grenades? If they were trying to scrap the shuttle for anything of value, a grenade up the ramp would make a mess of plenty of expensive equipment. Hopefully, they knew that. The murmurs stopped and a gruff voice came up, "Imperial?"

So they were going to try and talk her down, a lot preferable to a thermal detonator up the hatch. She could talk with the best of them, she just had to hope that they weren't just buying time while they looked for a hatch to come up behind her. She knew enough about the T-4 to recognize it and it turned out to be fool-proof enough for her to manage the ship while Cass was down for the count, but she didn't know anything about possible escape hatches. It was best to get on with it, then, "Not Imperial."

The gruff voice mumbled incoherently down the ramp before responding, "So it's stolen, huh? Not too many groups out there dumb enough to steal an Imperial shuttle without a plan."

She didn't hear any footsteps coming up the ramp yet, at least. This crew was being cautious, not spoiling for a fight. That likely ruled out pirates. She had worked with pirates before and could count on one hand the number of crews she knew that wouldn't rush up the ramp the second her first shot rang out. Still, best to keep her wits about her, "Who said I don't have a plan?"

The gruff voice laughed at that, quickly followed by the other voices around it, "The fact that you're sitting in my cargo bay right now tells me you don't have a plan. So you're a rebel?" It was less a question as much as it was a statement. She couldn't quite tell if she heard admiration or disdain in the tone of it. She could only hope for admiration.

"Maybe," she felt the word in her mouth as she spoke it. "Maybe not. How likely are you to try and blast some rebels in your cargo hold?"

The laugh came back up the ramp. That couldn't be a bad sign, could it? Every second that they didn't rush up the ramp made her and Cassian's survival more likely but the answer to this particular question would go a long way to easing her concerns. The leader called up, "No friend of the Empire on this ship, at least."

She let out a breath that she hadn't realized she was holding. Her grip on the blaster rifle loosened a fraction but she remained alert. There was still a long way to go before they were in the clear.

"Any chance you could tell me who I'm dealing with?" asked Jyn. "Not to pry, but it might help ease our negotiations a bit."

"Negotiations is it? I thought we were just having a nice chat. Let me come up and we can get better acquainted," said the leader from the ramp. Heavy footfalls started making their way up and she couldn't have that just yet. She let out another shot from her blaster and the steps stumbled back a bit.

"Just you, your friends can stay outside for the time being," shouted Jyn from behind her cover. "And no blaster, hands up and come up the ramp slowly."

An argument started grumbling from down the ramp. The boss let out an unintelligible shout and the argument appeared to end, "Alright, miss, just me. No blaster, no crew. I'm coming up!"

Jyn steadied her grip on the blaster rifle as the footsteps thudded up the ramp and a rather large besalisk came into view. Scars ran up and down his face and arms and she felt certain that there were more under the vest. He was true to his word, though, his hands were up and there didn't appear to be any weapons strapped to his body, not that he'd need any. He stopped at the top of the ramp and sized Jyn up, "The name's Io Krodd. Pleasure to make your acquaintance miss…"

"Talina, friends call me Lina," she shifted away from the cargo she had taken position behind and lowered her rifle slightly, but not too much. Her finger was still resting on the side of the trigger. Io had been rather understanding, but he was a long way away from being trusted.

"Pleasure to meet you, Lina, and welcome aboard the Stormspike." Io wore an easy smile, he kept his hands up but lowered them to a more relaxed position. Jyn was beginning to think her and Cass had lucked out and gotten picked up by some salvagers when Io noticed Cass's foot limply poking out from the crates she had sheltered him behind.

Io began to walk towards him and Jyn immediately sighted his head, "Take one more step towards him and I'll end you."

"Whoa there, Lina! It just looks like your friend here needs some help," Io's hands had raised a bit but his smile was still easy, he seemed to be challenging her to make good on her threat as if his people wouldn't kill them both if she did. "I've got some decent medical equipment aboard."

She hesitated for a second, shifting her position slowly to put herself between Io and Cass's unconscious body. She only had moments to make the call and Cassian could definitely use the treatment. Io hadn't done anything to make her think he was a threat, he had been pretty patient with her random blaster fire and strong talk.

She slung her blaster behind her back and moved to Cass, "He has a blaster wound and took about a 15 meter fall onto a metal platform." At the sound of her voice, Cassian stirred faintly, his eyes opening just a bit and finding her. He smiled.

Io came up behind her, shouting down the ramp, "Tell Ora we're going to need her! Got a couple of injured up here!" His laugh came behind her and the hair on the back of her neck stood on end. From her crouch, she tried to unholster her pistol but Io's fist came down on her head lightning quick. Jyn's vision blurred over before she hit the deck and blackness soon followed.

So, Pirates then.

* * *

Jyn could hear them arguing before she could see them. She couldn't make out everything that was being shouted but at least part of the argument was about what to do with the new cargo that the pirates had picked up. Whether or not she and Cass were included with the "cargo" she couldn't quite tell. The voices appeared to come to an agreement and she heard their footsteps draw closer. She opened her eyes and found herself in a small cargo hold, her hands bound behind her. They had taken her vest off her and, along with it, the concussion grenades that she had found on the pad back at Scarif.

The door slid open and two pirates dragged Cassian into the hold, dropping him next to Jyn. He was conscious now and, after a quick inspection, they had apparently patched him up enough to where she wasn't worried about him bleeding out on her anytime soon. Why the pirates had bothered healing him at all, however, was a little worrying. As if on cue, Io stepped through the door and leaned over the two rebels, "We might not be friends of the Empire but a pair of rebels on a stolen shuttle'll surely pick up a pretty price from one of the outposts on Kessel. If you're lucky, they'll just put you lot to work in the spice mines."

Io's smile had grown decidedly more sinister since the last time she had seen him. The Besalisk laughed as he walked out of the hold and the door slid into place behind him, a soft click letting her know that it wasn't going to be easy to open it back up. So they were heading to Kessel, it was in the right direction, somewhat, but she would rather not be on the ship when it pulled into port there. Cassian swung his bound hands around his feet in front of him and pulled a set of tools out of his boot, "You know, Jyn, before you came into my life I had never been captured. It's now happened twice in as many weeks."

"Good to see you're okay," said Jyn, rolling her eyes and maneuvering her own hands around in front of her as she started looking around the hold for anything of use. "Any idea how long we have until these pirates make it to Kessel?"

Cass wasted no time getting to work on the door's lock as she started looking through the scattered boxes, their bound hands making their work just difficult enough to be frustrating. After a few clicks, the lock sparked and the door opened, Cassian peeked out the door and turned to Jyn, "An hour, two tops. Let's not be here when they land, yeah?"

"You'll hear no objections from me," said Jyn. "I think our friend Krodd might not be a fan of that plan, though." The two smiled at each other, Jyn mostly at the sight of Cass doing marginally better. He still was a long way off from being healthy but they were no longer against the clock.

Finding nothing useful in the scattered rubbish around her, she joined Cassian at the door and the two started to methodically and silently make their way down the hall. A door near them began to cycle and the two quickly took places in narrow gaps along the corridor. A pirate came into view, apparently bored at this stage of the journey, and meandered toward the rebel duo.

Cass and Jyn exchanged a look and as the pirate walked by them Cass gave a whistle. The pirate faced the noise and began to unholster his blast pistol when Jyn brought her clasped fists down on top of his head, knocking him out. Jyn picked up the pistol and covered down the hall as Cass rifled through the pirate's pockets.

"Any luck finding a key for these?" she asked, gesturing to the bindings around their hands while covering the corridor for any other unwanted company.

Cassian winced as he pushed the limp body over to check more pockets and shook his head at Jyn as he came up empty. She slid the pistol into her pocket and helped Cass drag the unconscious man back to their cargo hold, the ordeal taking longer than it should. Aboard an unknown ship, the two would have to rely on a lot of luck to make their way back to their stolen shuttle before they were found out. Jyn found herself subconsciously grabbing her kyber crystal necklace before putting it back and thanking the pirates for doing a terrible job of checking her before throwing her into their hold.

She pulled her pistol out and the two made their way back to where they were in the corridor before coming upon an intersection. Jyn turned to Cass, "Alright, so where to from here?"

Cass laughed quietly at that, "I can take us back to their medbay, but other than that I'm just as lost as you."

The two quickly looked down both ends of the hall but nothing particularly stood out, "Alright then, how about… Left?"

"Left? Why left?" asked Cassian, looking for anything that made a shuttle bay more obvious than to the right before looking at Jyn.

She shrugged, "We have to start somewhere." The two took off to the left, keeping their footfalls soft. It wasn't long before the two came to another door, sounds of grinding gears and voices coming from inside letting them know that it was occupied. Cass leaned near the door and help up a finger, letting Jyn know that he only heard one voice.

Jyn and Cass took position on either side of the frame. Cassian mouthed a countdown to Jyn and she readied her pistol. As he ended the countdown, he hit the door panel and the two slid into the room. At the far end, a pirate hunched over machinery apparently oblivious to their infiltration.

Cass and Jyn slowly made their way to the mechanic, careful not to make a noise. Jyn gently tapped his shoulder with her blaster. The pirate turned his head, his eyes growing wide with sudden realization and Cassian springing to cover his mouth before the pirate could shout an alarm, "You shout and my friend here will blast you, do you understand?"

Jyn pushed her pistol into the pirate's back to emphasize Cass's point and he nodded. Cassian reached down to the pirate's belt and relieved him of his own blaster pistol. The pirate put his hands up and Cass turned him around, "You're going to help us get off this ship but first, unlock these cuffs."

With the initial shock wearing off, the pirate's eyes grew harder and a snarl formed on his lip, "If you think Io's just going to let you off the Stormspike, you've got another thing coming."

His snarl turned into a smug grin. Jyn raised her eyebrows and rolled her eyes at Cass, "I mean, he's got a point, there's no way we're getting off the _Stormspike_."

Cass gave a contemplative look in return and began nodding his head, "I suppose so…" Cassian's head struck out lightning quick into the pirate's face, who grabbed at his nose as blood started flowing. Cass grabbed his shirt and shook, "Get these cuffs off of us and then point us towards our shuttle. If we need anything else from you, we'll ask, got it?"

The thug held his nose and nodded through the pain. In short order, he had split the bindings between the shackles, allowing their hands to move freely but unable to remove the bracelets themselves. Cass looked around the room for anything else of use but couldn't find anything, Jyn turned to the pirate, "Where's our shuttle?"

With the blaster stuck in his face and his shirt turning red from his bloodied nose, the pirate was much more helpful, "Take a right out of here, follow the hall till you get to the main corridor, take a left and the hanger where your shuttle is at the end."

"And where did you put our stuff?" asked Jyn.

"Jyn, we don't have time for that," said Cass as he moved back to the door.

"They took my vest," stated Jyn, matter-of-factly. Cass gave her a look before she added, "And my concussion grenades."

That seemed to work with Cassian and he grabbed the pirate by his collar and dragged him to the door, "And you're going to show us where her vest is."

For his part, the pirate merely nodded and began to lead the duo through the corridors. For as big a ship as the Stormspike appeared to be, there were surprisingly few people moving about and the group made it to the cargo hold where the pirates had begun to place the various pieces from the shuttle they were currently stripping. Jyn found her vest near the door, the concussion grenades where she had left them.

It wasn't long after that before they found themselves at a large blast door, supposedly for the hangar that their shuttle was trapped in. Cassian roughly pushed the pirate against a wall, "Now, when we get in there, how do we open the hangar doors? Are there any clamps on the shuttle we'll need to take off?"

"You can take care of all of that on the panel by the hangar door," said the pirate, his bloody smile only a little bit disconcerting.

Cass maneuvered the pirate in front of him, still holding his pistol on the back of his head. Jyn moved to the door panel and opened it. The shuttle came into view, several pirates surrounding it, working to strip its valuable parts. Walking amongst the clutch of pirates, standing a solid head taller than the rest, was Io, directing the work.

Before Cass could do anything the pirate screamed, "Io! The rebels got free!"

Krodd immediately turned to the duo and let out a savage roar.


	3. Chapter 3

Io's roar quaked throughout the hanger and chaos quickly followed. Cass wasted no time whacking their prisoner in the back of the head, knocking him out, before targeting and dropping a pair of pirates that were unfortunate enough to be close to him and Jyn took aim at the leader. The pirates began to return fire, and the two rebels took position behind debris that littered the space.

Cassian exchanged fire with a cadre that had organized quickly against the intruders. His shots finding their marks at a rate that would impress any drill sergeant in the galaxy and his adversaries quickly fell back, putting the shuttle between themselves and the reaper that had already plucked several from their number. Jyn fired several shots into the mighty Besalisk across the hangar, but none seemed to make an impact, as Io's stride towards her didn't waver.

Cass had moved away from Jyn, trying to keep the rest of the pirates pinned while she dealt with Krodd, and wouldn't be able to help her. As Jyn's blaster began to click empty, the large pirate broke into a run towards her. Jumping out of the way at the last second, she just narrowly avoided getting thrown into the sharp twists of metal that poked out from the various scrap piles. She grabbed at a heavy bar of metal and quickly struck it against Krodd's back as hard as she could manage. She was rewarded with a howl of pain, she smiled to herself, pleased to know that she could hurt the alien.

Jyn knew that she wasn't going to be able to keep this up for long against the hulking besalisk. She might be agiler than the big alien but Io was stronger, and all of the debris in the hangar was going to make her agility count for nothing sooner rather than later. She needed to end the fight, and fast. Her grip tightened on the metal bar, and she reeled back to strike the pirate captain again when Io struck out at hear, his giant fist landing against the side of her head.

Jyn's vision blurred again, and she started blinking, trying to focus. Krodd reared back, towering over the rebel. She realized she had lost her bar and looked desperately around her to find it, but it was gone. Jyn gritted her teeth. This wasn't going to be her last fight, on some junker of a spaceship heading back to an Imperial gulag. She balled her fists and began to strike Io with all her might. The big pirate merely laughed, picking her up with one pair of arms and squeezing her into a vice with his other two.

She could feel the breath pressing out of her and her vision, still blurry from the strike to her head, began to blacken around the edges. In the distance, she could hear Cassian scream, whether he had been hit or was just distressed by her current predicament, she couldn't figure. As she could feel the life escaping her, her hands groped at Io's neck, unable to find a hold anywhere.

Io began that awful laugh from before and one last reserve of adrenaline spiked into Jyn's bloodstream. Her vision sharpened and her strength returned in one last gasp. She closed her eyes and slammed her forehead into one of his eyes, avoiding the hardened top of his head. As Krodd roared again and grabbed at his eye, Jyn reached down into her vest and grabbed a concussion grenade. She armed the explosive and, with a laugh of her own, shoved it into Io's open maw.

The besalisk dropped Jyn in surprise, and the rebel immediately rolled as far away from him as she could manage. Io spat the grenade out and launched himself in the opposite direction, but it didn't matter.

The concussion grenade went off, and Jyn's world turned into a flash of white and shadow, her ears ringing incessantly. Before she could so much as see what was in front of her, a hand grabbed her by the shoulder and roughly started shoving her along, the high-pitched blast from a pistol going off near her head.

She stumbled along, eventually feeling herself go up. Once she made it to the top of the ramp, the hand pushed her down and out of the way. Slowly but surely, her sight came back and she could see Cass firing down at the pirates. Her hearing returned soon after that, and she stumbled towards her partner.

"Give me this," she wrested the pistol from his hands and started firing down at the pirates. "You opened the hangar bay, right?"

"While you were busy hugging that besalsik," said Cassian, with only a trace of snark. "Keep them off the ramp and put this on."

Cassian reached into a compartment near where they were and handed Jyn a breathing respirator before heading off to the cockpit with his own. The firing subsided enough for her to put it on before she noticed that the pirates had mangled the ramp too much in their attempt to open it. They wouldn't be able to close it completely after they took off.

The engine started to spin up and another pair of brave, or stupid, pirates made a rush at the ramp. A couple of well-aimed shots from Jyn dropped one and sent the other crawling back to cover yelping in pain. Cassian's voice came from across the ship, "Just another second!"

Io's distinctive bark came from out inside the hangar, and the firing stopped. That couldn't be good, thought Jyn. She took the momentary ceasefire to shift her position and try and get a better look. As she huddled behind cover, a group of five pirates came into view, setting up…

"Cassian!" cried Jyn. "How much time till we're out of here?"

"Sixty seconds!" came Cassian's cry from the cockpit.

"We only have 30!" Jyn shouted. "They've got a blaster cannon right about to put a few holes in us!"

Jyn fired into the mass of pirates, dispersing them for a moment before Io shouted more orders and the pirates returned a hail of their own blaster fire, forcing Jyn to duck back.

"Hold on!" shouted Cassian.

The shuttle lurched off its landing gear and swayed before crashing through several crates, wiping several pirates from the galaxy in an instant. Before Jyn could grab a handhold, the Lambda shuttle was zipping out of the hangar, sending her tumbling towards the open ramp. As the pirate's ship faded, the open maw of space reached out to grab her.

Scrambling now, Jyn clawed at the metal grating, trying to find purchase. Her muscles ached from the previous ordeal, not the least of which was the bone-crunching bear hug from that bastard, Io. She grabbed at a bench, snagging it for a second before a crate smashed into her knuckles. Jyn continued to roll, the prickling of stars seemingly reaching out for her before her back cracked against a railing. She managed to loop her arm around it before it was too late, dragging herself up enough to hit at the controls on the wall closest to her.

The ramp closed as much as it could, stymying the outrush of atmosphere enough for Jyn to get back on her feet. She made her way to the cockpit, her body on fire, now telling her just how much she had put herself through. She found Cassian behind the controls. He was conscious, but his breathing was obviously labored. She slammed the button to shut the door and waited for the atmosphere to regulate itself before she and her companion removed their masks.

With the door secured and his partner safe next to him, Cassian put in the calculations for their hyperspace jump, and their ship slipped into the nothingness that laid in between the cracks of space. Jyn felt the familiar sensation of her stomach bottoming out before her body returned to normal.

They both sat in silence, allowing themselves a moment of peace, just breathing. After what felt like hours to Jyn but what could have only been minutes, she turned to Cassian and found him passed out in his chair.

Her heart rate spiked, and she immediately grabbed at his neck looking for a pulse. She found one, faint but steady, and got up to find something to cover him. Most of the ship's provisions were out in the cargo hold of the shuttle if they hadn't been sucked out into the void, that is. With the compromised ramp, the door to the cockpit wasn't going to open until they made it back to Yavin, though.

Jyn found an emergency kit stowed away below a door panel that contained a pathetic looking survival blanket, which she promptly draped over the Captain. As much as she had been through since they decided to go rogue and attack Scarif, Cassian had been through exponentially more, and you could see it plainly on his face, cut and battered as it was.

She sat across from him, watching his chest rise and fall with his breathing. Jyn was thankful that Cassian had made it out with her. As at odds as they had been when they first met each other, he was the closest thing to family that she had anymore. If they could survive Scarif maybe they could survive anything, and if they could survive, maybe she could start thinking about her future.

It was these thoughts, however impossible they might have seemed, that filled her mind as she followed her Captain into an exhausted slumber.

* * *

 **The shuttle jostled as it came to a halt, shaking Jyn awake. With memories of Io and his band of pirates fresh on her mind, she bolted upright in her seat, her hand shooting up with a tight grip on her blaster.**

"Whoa there," said Cassian, somehow sounding worse than he had only hours before. "No need for that, we're here. We're home."

Jyn looked out the cockpit and saw the now-familiar temples of Yavin 4 filling in the view. Among the many parked starfighters, rebel soldiers and crewmen were scrambling towards them.

"It's a good thing I woke up when I did," said Andor, stumbling out of his seat before Jyn maneuvered her shoulder to support him. "We would've had a nice greeting from an X-Wing if I hadn't radioed that we were in a stolen Imperial shuttle."

"Lucky us," said Jyn, opening the door and leading Cass out to the mangled ramp. Before it even managed to hit the runway, a medic team was already bounding up it with a stretcher for Cassian. Cass tried his hardest to fight them off, insisting that he was fine, but he was too weak and eventually allowed himself to be carried off.

The crowd that had formed around the shuttle parted to make way for the medics in quiet deference, many soldiers managing only to rest a hand on Cassian's shoulder as he was carried by. As Jyn made her own way down the ramp, she saw many of the crowd's eyes returning to her. She froze at the bottom, the feeling of being prey under the watchful eye of a dangerous predator creeping up her spine.

The silence that had taken hold of the crowd as the injured Captain had been taken away held delicately for a brief second before all she could hear were loud cheers. Through the throng of clapping and cheering rebels, a private struggled his way toward her, squeezing out of the crowd and making his own way to her side.

"Ms. Erso! I've been instructed to bring you to General Draven for debriefing!" shouted the private over the cheers of the crowd. "Follow me!"

Jyn allowed herself to be guided through the mass of bodies, many of the soldiers jockeying for a position to clap her on the shoulder or to congratulate her for saving the rebellion. She didn't know quite how she felt about that; she had mostly just survived Scarif. If anything, the countless soldiers, her friends, who had lost their lives on and around the planet had done more to save the rebellion than she had.

She continued through the hangar bay, the memory of her last time walking these steps, in shackles, only briefly crossing her mind. That felt like it was ages ago, so much had happened since then. Her whole life had changed since then.

The control room was empty, save the General and the private that had led her to him, who quickly dismissed himself after flashing a salute to his senior officer. Draven cleared his throat, and Jyn quickly remembered how annoyed she found herself with him. Despite the cheer that was still evident just outside the hangar, General Dravets wore a grim and humorless expression.

"I don't know how you did it, Erso, but you did," said Davits.

Jyn sat there, staring, unwilling to continue the conversation, and the General shifted uncomfortably, "I need you to tell me everything that happened, starting from the moment you and Cassian took off from this base."

She stood there for a moment, wondering if she could just walk off but the look on Draven's face let her know that that probably wasn't a good idea. When it became apparent that she wasn't escaping from that room until she told him everything he wanted to know she sighed and began to tell her story.

She told him everything, from their plan to set off explosions as distractions, to her, Cassian, and Kaytoo's infiltration of the base. She didn't know everything, much of what happened on the beach was a mystery to her, but she felt like she could reasonably guess at how it all happened. She hadn't allowed herself to dwell on the fate of her friends, her family, since she had made it off the planet. The memory of them hit her in the gut with as much force as a blaster bolt, but she refused to show any weakness to Draven.

After several hours, she finally finished filling in the rebel intelligence chief on her and her compatriots' deeds. The man still wore a grimace, but her words appeared to satisfy him. Jyn was beginning to hope that she'd be able to leave and see Cassian in the medical ward before the General coughed, apparently readying to say something important.

"Miss Erso, you have shown a high aptitude for field work," said Draven, obviously uncomfortable with giving the former criminal and daughter of an Imperial scientist any praise. "And, after the loss of most of our agents in the past few weeks, we find ourselves in dire straights during one of our most tenuous hours.

Jyn cocked an eyebrow, "What're you saying?"

"What I'm saying," sighed Draven, resigning himself to the offer he was about to make, "Is that we have a mission for you. If you agree, you'll be commissioned as an officer in Alliance Intelligence."

"What about Cassian?" asked Jyn.

"You'd work directly with the Captain," said Davits. "If you wanted, of course. Medical tells me he'll be out for at least a week, so he won't be available for this mission, but once he's out, you'll work with him."

"What's the job?"

"You'll need to agree to join first."

* * *

Jyn walked into the room in the medical wing as silently as she could. The doctors had said that he'd just come out of surgery and would likely be out for hours to come, but she was determined to be there when he came to. It didn't matter, however, as Cassian's smile greeted her when she rounded the corner.

"I hear you should be saluting me, Lieutenant Erso," said Andor, with an amount of sarcasm Jyn had thought previously impossible for someone with so many different drugs in their system. "Congratulations, Jyn."

Jyn gave her injured friend an equally sarcastic salute as she took a seat next to his bed, "I suppose you're to thank for giving them the idea?"

"I might've mentioned something in one of my last reports," said Cassian, trying to suppress a grin. "So, what's the job?"

"Top secret, I'm afraid," said Jyn, laughing at the disappointed look Cassian responded with. "You'll just have to get one of your contacts to tell you."

Jyn looked around at the large private room, or, at least large for a military hospital. Cassian, sensing her thoughts, chimed in, "Being a Captain in the Alliance and a veteran of Scarif has its perks, I guess."

At that moment, a medical droid popped into the room, moving towards Cassian's side, "It is time to take some more meds, Captain."

The droid began pressing buttons on a console next to Andor's side, "This round is quite the doozy, sir. You'll be unconscious within the minute."

"Wait, could you give me just two-" but Cassian's eyes were already starting to roll back into his skull, the clouds of medicine dragging him into unconsciousness.

Jyn, a little startled at the abruptness of the droid's appearance and how quickly it knocked out Cassian, sat in her chair, wary of the droid turning its attentions on her.

"You're approved to stay in this room as long as you'd like, Lieutenant Erso," said the droid. "Just make sure you don't disturb the patient, I'd to have to sedate you as well."

The droids eerie laughter followed it out of the room, leaving Jyn with an unconscious Cassian Andor. Her exhaustion hit her almost immediately, but she took a moment to give Cass a long look. Covered in bandages and bruises the way he was, he was almost unrecognizable as the ruggedly handsome spy that she had met not too long ago. Almost.

Jyn shrugged off her jacket to use as a blanket, there was certainly an extra blanket lying around but she found herself unwilling to leave Cass's side, and she maneuvered herself into as comfortable a position as she could manage in her chair. Sleep was not far behind.

* * *

"Lieutenant," a voice called out from the darkness. "Eltee."

Her shoulder was nudged, and her eyes blinked open, a figure coming into focus. Jyn started up but found her hand entangled in Cassian's. When did that happen?

"Lieutenant, I've been instructed to collect you," said the figure, a redheaded woman in a flight suit. "Your team is ready to move out."

"Is it?" asked Jyn, stretching as she got up. "And who might you be?"

"Talla, Ria Talla. I'm your pilot," said Ria, snapping off a smart salute. "You'll meet the rest at the ship, ma'am."

"Of course," said Jyn, returning Ria's salute. She moved with Ria toward the door before taking a second to give Cass a final glance, committing the image to memory. "I guess we should get off to Tatooine, then."

* * *

 _Ho-Lee Crap. This took a while, guys! My sincerest apologies! Life came at me pretty hard about halfway through writing this chapter. It's not quite done pummeling me into the dust, but at least I figured out a suitable way to move on with the plot! If you enjoyed this at all, please let me know! Your comments literally (figuratively) give me lifeforce._


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